I think the hardest thing for a noob is gaining enough experience to know when information is suspect and to act accordingly.

This is why I always recommend having three sources of reference to confirm that a load is safe or legitimate. While I did not have a mentor per say when I first started to handload, I was privileged to know some folks that had a good amount of experience. This was something one of them told me as a newbie, along with using a powder that meters well and fills or nearly fills the case. The reasoning behind the three sources of reference is that even if one is wrong or misprinted, the other two won't be. Also, using three sources gives one a better "average" starting load as only two sources may be at both ends of the spectrum. The exception to this would be the Lee manuals that do not develop their own loads but copy from others. Using a powder that fills the case means one cannot double charge and can easily see that they have not missed charging a case. It also makes it easier to see if all charges are approximately the same volume. Charges that fill or nearly fill the case usually are not affected much by a difference of +/- .1 or .2 grains as compared to those faster powders that use miniscule volume. The other thing I was told was not to buy large quantities of any component until I was settled on what worked well for me and to not load large quantities of ammo until I found a load that I was satisfied with.